Have you ever picked up a book knowing that its arrival in your life at precisely this moment was a gift? That was my sense when I held Jay Michaelson’s The Gate of Tears, subtitled “Sadness and the Spiritual Path.” As I delved into the book (out this month in paperback), that sense only deepened. “Joy and sadness are not opposites,” Michaelson writes. “Sometimes, they coexist, like two consonant notes of a complex yet harmonious chord.” And he observes: “At our contemporary moment, the ordinary sadness that is part of a life......
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Why do so many people in our culture still buy into the notion that “real men don’t cry”? In a recent piece on Aeon, writer Sandra Newman raises this question. And she suggests that there may be some utility in men containing their tears in certain situations. But she also points out that it’s a relatively recent concept to equate masculinity with dry eyes – an idea that’s ultimately more unhealthy than not. Newman cites scientific research showing that crying opens pathways of connection and healing in unique ways; it often includes......
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